If you want to pick up some brain berries while they are still in season, you better hurry! At many markets, this could be the last week, although a few local farms grow varieties that could last a few weeks longer.

Brain berries?  If you haven’t heard the term, it’s what some health professionals are calling blueberries, because of their positive effect on the brain.

“Blueberries (also called brain berries) are an especially good source of antioxidants,” Dr. Daniel G. Amen, brain imaging specialist, wrote in his book, Making a Good Brain Great.

Dr. Amen is the founder of the Amen Clinics, which specialize in brain health, one of which is in Reston, VA.  In one of his blog entries entitled, “Another Reason to Love Blueberries,” Dr. Amen stated that Canadian researchers found that “blueberries help protect the brain, but the fruit may also have a heart protective effect by significantly lowering cholesterol.”

Increased awareness about the health benefits of blueberries has benefited local farmers.

“As soon as we started hearing about the health kick and people pushing blueberries, we said, ‘Hey, we got blueberries,’ so it worked out great for us,” said Tyler Butler, whose family runs Butler’s Orchard, a pick your own orchard that has been operating in Germantown for 60 years.

And it turns out this season has been a good season for blueberries.

Butler described the berries as “awesome” and surmised that this season might be in the top three best that his family has ever experienced.

“My dad and I have been watching them and we had no idea that they’d be the way they are,” Butler said. “They just really came on hard and big and juicy. The weather was real good.”

Leroy Tracey of Mountain Valley Orchard in Cavetown, MD agreed, “Overall, the crop’s been pretty good,” adding with relief, “We haven’t had much trouble with stinkbugs.” 

He also sells his produce at his roadside market in Cavetown, where he’s open seven days a week.

“The blueberries continue to be a point of pride for me,” Ben Wenk of Three Springs Fruit Farm said in his weekly email to customers, “We've been picking killer blueberries this year.”  Wenk has a stall at the Silver Spring Farmers' Market.

Yet, the opportunity to get these blueberries won’t last long.

“If people are going to come out, I’d encourage them to come out sooner rather than later,” Butler said.

Frieda Unger of Unger’s Fruit Farm said that her family would have blueberries this Saturday at their stall at the Rockville Farmers Market, “but not as much as last weekend.”  They will also have blackberries.  Unger said that peaches are starting to come in and in two weeks they’ll have a lot of peaches.

If you’re unable to get to your local farmers market to get the last of the blueberries, do not dismay, there are a few other options.

If you are up for picking your own, take a drive to Germantown, because Butler’s Orchard should have blueberries until early August.

“We have 14 acres of blueberries,” Butler explained, “What happens with blueberries is that we have different varieties for different times of the year.”

While they’ve finished with the early season varieties, Butler’s Orchard has other varieties that grow later in the season.

“Now we’re about in our mid-season berries and those varieties are called blue ray and blue crop.  Those are mid-season varieties.  They have lots of flavor and a real good size on them. 

"We even have varieties after them coming on, and those varieties are still green, so we have a few weeks left.  We’re a little over mid-season here, and there’s a lot more that we still have to get,” Butler explained.

Blueberry picking is also a lot of fun, according to Butler, and not nearly as strenuous as strawberry picking, where one has to bend down for extended periods. 

“Blueberries are great.  They are chest height, so you can pick them so easily.  Kids have no problem picking them.  It’s an easier fruit to grow for pick your own,” Butler said. 

Another way to eat local blueberries past August is to freeze them.

When it comes to freezing blueberries, Butler explained, “You really can pick them, rinse them, throw them in a bag and throw them in the freezer.  It doesn’t get easier than that.”

“My mom would always give me a Dixie cup full of frozen blueberries, Butler recalled, “It’s refreshing because they freeze real nice and it’s kind of like a popsicle.  It’s a nice little popsicle treat.”